Monthly Archives: April 2015

The second Flashdogs anthology is in the works. This one’s theme is Solstice, and it will contain the work of more than 30 writers of flash fiction from around the world, including me and my LCP partner Beth Deitchman.

Spearheaded by two lovely gentlemen from Great Britain, Mark A. King and David Shakes, Flashdogs is a collective of stellar writers who write super short stories. The word limit for this anthology is 1000 words or less. All proceeds go to charity.

Tam Rogers produces the gorgeous artwork for the Flashdogs’ covers and promotion.

I’m working furiously on my three solstice stories in the tiny snippets of time I have before work on Saturdays and Mondays.

My husband and I found her in a dog rescue house in Costa Rica, a half-feral little animal quite desperate for but terrified of human love. It took her a while to get used to accepting our love, but by the end of her life she could lean her weight into us and relax in our arms.

Humans had treated this little sweetheart badly early in life. She had a bullet in her chest to deep to remove—someone shot her when she was a puppy on the streets. She was afraid of people, even gentle ones, at first. In a great leap of faith, she learned trust in this life. Nothing made us happier than to have our little Pasha rest in our lap–it always felt like such a moment of grace when she did.

Over our twelve years with her, Pasha earnestly offered devotion and companionship. We were so lucky to share a beautiful chunk of our lives with this little wild soul.

My first novel, Velo Races, started its life as a self-published book that I produced through my writing partnership, Luminous Creatures Press. In the past year it has been quietly morphing into its second, bigger incarnation.

I am thrilled to announce that in 2016 The Velocipede Races will be transformed into a new special edition produced by Elly Blue Publishing, an imprint of Microcosm, the coolest rebel press in the USA.

The Velocipede Races will be released one year from today on April 12, 2016. It will be a fiery, independent Aries, of course.

I can’t believe it’s already time to review my March goals and set my April ones. But here it is, 5:30 am on April 1st!

I had seven goals for March, since seven is the most magical number. Let’s see how I did:

1) Finish revision on The Gantean and send to Beth for reading. CHECK! I did this. I feel proud that I did, too, because I nearly slacked off and decided to wait. Christine Kam-Lynch gave me a special email prod (as she does so well) to get it done, not to mention a small pep talk about following through on my Lethemia Fantasy series.

2) Read The Gantean on my kindle for flow. This one I did not do. I decided to wait until after Beth does her read on it to stagger our readings. We both agreed that this is likely to catch more issues and have fewer mistakes slip through the cracks. The Gantean is a complicated book that has been changed many times, so continuity issues are rampant.

3) Revise Lethemia Book 2. Oh, dear. I didn’t get to this one, either.

4) New writing. Possibly begin Lethemia Book 7 since I finally had an idea about it, thanks to feedback and discussion from Christine after her comments from Book 5. SUPER CHECK! This is where a great deal of my time went this month.I wrote 22,000 words in Lethemia Book 7 and rewrote the first 30,000 words of Lethemia Book 5. I also drafted three short stories for the Flashdogs’s next anthology.

5) Maps for The Gantean and Kindle the Flame. CHECK! I got smart on this one and outsourced my Lethemia maps to my friend Maya, a supremely talented artist from Paonia, Colorado, and I helped Tamara Shoemaker with a simple map for her upcoming Heart of a Dragon Series.

6) Beta-read Tony Caruso’s massively revised A Town Called the End. CHECK! I finished Tony’s book in a flash and sent him a global overview and chapter by chapter commentary. He’s now working furiously on even more revisions, I’m sure. I promised him when I started reading for him that he would learn to love revisions, and I think it’s working.

7) If I have any time left over (ha ha!) I want to read through Lethemia Book 5, which has been stewing in rough draft form for over a year. CHECK! I not only read over it, I am a third of the way through a full rewrite. See Goal #4 above.

In March I also did my line edit on Tamara’s Kindle the Flame. We pushed, editing 2-4 chapters a day. Tamara was awesome and worked so hard, and we finished the edit by the skin of our teeth on March 31st! I’ve been taking on more editing and reading jobs in the past few months and really enjoying it.

Here are my goals for April 2015:

1) New writing, always. I expect this month I’ll focus on Lethemia books 7 and 5, since I’m on a roll with them.

2) Flashdog stories. I’m writing three stories based on picture prompts and the theme of solstice for the next Flashdogs anthologies. All three stories are drafted, but, as usual, they need major word count reductions, further proof that my talents lie well outside the limits of flash fiction. We aren’t talking 100 word revisions, either. All three stories need at least 1000 words taken out to qualify.

3) Format and review Kindle the Flame. Tamara’s goal is a May 1st pre-order run and a June 1st publication date. This will be easy to achieve.

4) Revise The Cedna, Lethemia book 2. I didn’t do it last month, so I must do it this month. I should probably tell Christine Kam-Lynch to prod me.

5) I have an edit scheduled with Joel Hedgepeth on his novel about a pharmacist who inherits a house from one of his clients and gets entangled in a court battle. It’s not my normal reading, but I’m looking forward to the variety.

6) Depending on Beth’s turnover time, I may try to revise The Gantean based on her remarks and do my read-through on the kindle.

I’m going to stick with six goals this month since last month that’s what I was able to complete.